Picture: Rayna's fur
Song: Worthless by eli.
Words: 2347
Published: May 8th, 2020
Third Person POV
Rayna
Rayna waves to Naomi through the car window and walks down the same driveway she had that morning. She sighs, holding her backpack straps tightly in her hands.
She watches as a car full of young adults drives by, heading out. She figures out that it's pack members heading to the pool, since it opens today. This is a day of celebration in everyone else's eyes. To her, it's a day to prematurely grieve over. Over her health and her education.
She stops in her steps to turn her head with the passing car. Guys were leaning out windows, cheering with music blaring. A girl was peeking through the sunroof holding a towel behind her.
She feels a lump form in her throat, and her eyes sting. She loves Naomi like a sister and is thankful for her, but how she wishes she could just be normal. Yeah, a good majority of the pack are assholes, but how good it would feel to be accepted and safe.
She sighs and turns back around, continuing the walk to the house.
She opens the door, keeping her head down, and just as the door closes behind her, she gets pushed to the ground. She looks up to see Jake, her brother.
Well, adoptive brother.
He snickers and heads out, not saying a word and leaving her on the ground. At least he didn't continue. She stands up, brushes herself off, and heads to her room. Placing her backpack next to her desk and laying down on her bed, she gets lost in thought.
When she was only six months old, she was left swaddled in a blanket in front of the pack house. It's a wonder no one saw who left her. The Beta Female, Rose, was the one who answered the door. She showed her to the pack and told her mate, Johnathan, that they were keeping her. The two already had three sons. Jayce, the oldest at nearly 4 years old and future Beta. Jamie, a true sweetheart at 2. Lastly, the youngest, Jake, who was only a year old.
Rose named her Rayna Dahlia Quinn, giving her their last name.
As Rayna grew, it became apparent that she was an outsider. She was bullied and excluded from everything. Rose did her best to stop this, and at first she had Johnathan at her side. Rayna made one friend and one friend only: Naomi. Over the years, Johnathan wouldn't care to lift a finger for the girl his wolf never claimed as his daughter, and he lied to Rose saying he'd do something about the bullying.
When Rayna was ten, in fifth grade, she was diagnosed with dyscalculia and dyslexia and held back a year. She took this as a fair trade, since it meant she was in the same grade as Naomi, no longer in the same grade as Jake, but it gave other kids another reason to bully her. That's why she graduated just before turning nineteen.
She shifted on her thirteenth birthday. Everyone saw. Her wolf is blue. Her fur is black at the roots and faded to blue with some near white. In certain lighting she could pull it off as a fairly normal silver, but that night, everyone clearly saw. She died inside. She had no chance at being normal. No chance of being happy or making friends.
Only four people saw the mark on her front right leg. Two of them knew what it means, one of them brushed it off, and one of them found out but didn't believe it. Rose tried to tell her what she is, but Johnathan continuously shut down every thought she tried to put into the young girls head.
Things were the worst when she was fourteen. She was on a walk with Rose. They were having a good day. Everything was okay.
Rogues attacked the pack and killed Rose.
Everyone blamed Rayna. She didn't help. It should've been her. They were probably coming back for her. She should've given herself up to them. She should've never been there. It's all her fault. Johnathan began abusing her. Jayce only did when his father told him to. Jamie refused, but Jake willingly did anytime he got the chance.
The bullying only got worse. Luckily, she had Naomi to get her through it. As she's said before, if it weren't for her, she'd have offed herself by now. That was when she told her. She needed someone to have no secrets with.
All of her brothers have graduated already. They all got parties, but she knows no one cares enough to throw one for her. Who would show up, anyways? Humans aren't allowed on pack grounds, so Naomi wouldn't be able to attend. To clarify, the pack territory is the entire county, but the area where the Pack House and forest is is the pack grounds.
Naomi's having a party in a few days. Rayna hopes she can go.
Jayce lives in the pack house, which makes it easier for her. She rarely has to cook for him. He generally ignores her, really. He's only helped her out a handful of times. He always made it seem like the only reason he was doing anything for her was actually for his own convenience, but she knows deep down that he actually cares for her. Though, he does beat her when Johnathan tells him to.
Jamie only lives at home half the time, since he spends a lot of time at his girlfriends apartment.
Jake is always home.
Jamie's the only one with a mate. Jake is too young, and it's rumored that Jayce was either rejected by or rejected his mate. Rayna doubts that.
Jamie's mate's name is Hazel. She's amazing. She used to be a bitch, but when she was old enough to find her mate, she realized what she was and what she could be. She changed, made better friends, and when she met Jamie, it was like love at first sight. They're perfect for each other.
You see, in the werewolf world, you can't find your mate until you're twenty. That's why in the past, forced mates and multiple baby daddies/mommas were popular. A female would typically mate with a different male after sixteen (the acceptable time to have sex back then) and have a child with a different male every year. After losing their virginity, the female would go into heat every year, causing them to have more children. Then, once they found their mate, they'd stay with them.
Nowadays, forced mating is illegal and—with better forms of protection—multiple baby daddies/mammas is frowned upon, but having sex before meeting your mate is still very common, even with the message from the Moon Goddess that it's best to save yourself for your mate. You can find your mate after eighteen, but only if your mate is already twenty or over.
The mating process consists of two steps. 1. Marking. 2. Mating.
Marking is when one (first the typically more dominant) mate find the others sweet spot—the crook of their neck—and bites it. It mixes their DNA, allowing them to feel the others emotions. It makes the one marked pass out and leaves a permanent mark, letting others know that they're taken. After this, it slowly gets more and more difficult to not complete step 2.
Mating is pretty self explanatory. It can be done a couple times with your mate without step 1, but after typically three to five, it would most definitely get more and more difficult to not complete step 1. After at most ten, it's impossible.
It's highly unaccepted to mark someone who is not your mate, and mating with someone who is not your mate doesn't give the urge to mark.
Sadly, Rayna has been . . . invaded before, meaning she goes into heat once a year. She keeps it a secret from as many people as possible, feeling so disgusting whenever she thinks about it. The first time, she hid in the woods for a week. The second time she spent the week with Naomi. She's had nightmares of that night countless times.
She has nightmares all the time. She hates it when she wakes up screaming because that usually warrants a beating.
She has a list of triggers. She has it written down for someone she meets, as if someone would care, but also has it memorized to the point where thinking of the list doesn't give her anxiety anymore.
Fast movements scare her. Being cornered almost always sends her into a panic attack. Being around a group of males intimidates her.
Other things put her on edge but don't trigger her.
People being nice always comes with a catch, from her experience at least, so someone treating her with kindness for no apparent reason puts her on edge. It's safe to say she has trust issues. She's extremely scared of making mistakes and not contributing to doing chores.
Two years ago, when Naomi got a job, she started paying for her own phone bill. With that responsibility, she bought Rayna a phone, as well. Rayna cried.
Naomi makes so many sacrifices for Rayna. She's even going to the local college so she can still be there for her, though she's taking a gap year to work first. Rayna can not be more thankful and grateful for a friend like that. Not to mention, Naomi's family happily treats her like their own.
Rayna loves art. Naomi keeps buying her sketchbooks and pencils. Every day there's a continued project or a new one. All the time, Naomi hears her talking about the latest one. The technique she used, the story behind it, the meaning it holds to her.
Most of her drawings are people she knows. Things she's seen. She does the best of Naomi, using her pics off social media as a basis. She draws a lot of animals and plants and skies. She's drawn a few of Ray. She showed them to him and he looked so happy. She's drawn Jamie and Hazel and given them as gifts, since she can't really buy anything for them. They've loved them. They're all happy drawings.
Some of her drawings are darker. They depict her emotions and how she feels. They show the abuse and her depression and anxiety. She likes to give those things, those feelings, forms. She's not the best with words, but drawing—that's how she really expresses herself.
She's drawn Jayce. That drawing wasn't as unique as her others. She doesn't feel that she knows that much about him. He's a fairly reserved man, though has enough personality to get along with easily. She feels that there's this large burden he's been carrying, but she doesn't know what it is.
She's drawn Danny. His actual name is Daniel Jr. River. He's the Alphas son. Alpha Daniel is an okay leader. He doesn't let the pack fall, but the inside is what he lacks peace with. It should be the Gammas work to keep the pack stable, but the Gamma is even worse than Johnathan. Daniel should have banished him a long time ago, but they're childhood friends.
His mates name is Rene. She's okay, but she lost her drive long, long ago.
Anyways, Danny and Jayce are best friends, as most Alpha-Betas are. Danny is 23, only a few months older than Jayce. They've been close since childhood and spend a lot of time together. She's drawn them together.
They were walking with their backs turned. She felt like something was off with the way their arms were at their sides, and the way their faces were, since they were just slightly looking at each other. She couldn't find out what it was, so she left it.
She's drawn Jake.
He was angry in her drawing, a huge shadow behind him. He had blood dripping from his fists, and it was overall a very dark picture. She wanted to believe for so long that deep down, he loved her.
She has only one drawing of Johnathan. He's in plenty of hers, as a dark figure or presence, but she only has one of him alone. He's cloaked in shadows, smiling with his hands behind his back.
Every time she uses up a sketchbook, she adds the drawings to this scrapbook kind of binder Naomi got her.
Her closet is filled with boxes of her mothers stuff, but she isn't allowed to have it open in her room. She just guesses it's too painful for Johnathan. Sometimes, she imagines that something bad happened to him to make him like this, and especially after Rose's death, he had so much bundled up that he dealt with by beating Rayna.
Other times, though, she thinks that he just likes seeing her in pain. He's never loved her. He's incapable of that emotion.
She knows that Jayce has been stupidly chasing his love. His attention. His approval. He'd do anything to please that cruel man. She feels bad for Jayce.
She loves all of her brothers no matter what. She especially loves Jamie, since he loves her back. She feels for Jayce, but she can't conjure enough forgiveness to feel anything for Jake.
She hides all of her art supplies in the cupboard of the desk and has a couple of boxes under her bed. One of those is for art and is where her binder is. The other is some of her mothers stuff. The last is stuff Naomi has bought for her.
She itches to open some stuff up, but she isn't sure who's home right now.
She jumps and stands up when there's a knock on her door, snapping her out of her thoughts. Her heart races, and she prepares for the door to slam open without warning and someone to come in and beat her.
"Hey, Rayna. It's me, Jamie. May I come in?"